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Fighting ISIS: $1.1bn Already Spent, ‘30 Years of War’ to Come
As the Pentagon reports spending of over $1 billion on bombing ISIS in Iraq and Syria, ex-Defense Secretary Leon Panetta says the fight against the Islamist movement may take as long as 30 years.
Since mid-June, when militants from the Islamic State (also known as ISIS, or ISIL) launched their lightning offensive in Iraq, the Pentagon has spent $1.1 billion on fighting the militia, US Central Command reported Monday.
The US Navy has spent $62 million on about 185 warheads, including 47 Tomahawk cruise missiles.
The US Air Force has spent far more on munitions, dropping some 1,000 smart bombs and rockets during its sorties, AP reported CentCom as saying.
Officials say the campaign has cost an average of $7 million to $10 million a day since June. The cost escalated after the US started bombing IS positions in Iraq in early August and then expanded to Syria in September.
The report confirmed an estimate by the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (CSBA), a Washington-based think tank with ties to the Pentagon, which said a week ago that the campaign against ISIS had probably already cost between $780 and $930 million.
The US military spending, supported by a coalition of some 40 nations, doesn’t appear to have stopped IS from scoring new victories. Its fighters have been advancing in the battle for the Syrian Kurdish town of Kobani overnight, with two IS flags still visible over the eastern side of the town, Reuters reported.
Source: http://truthisscary.com/2014/10/fighting-isis-1-1bn-already-spent-30-years-of-war-to-come/
